Exit Strategy
by 8belles
Summary: How will Season Two begin? My humble submission for a start. We await you Season Two with baited breath!


**A/N: of course we have no idea what the Writers are up to with Season Two, except that it will be epic. However, we do know of all the people who need recuing the most, Ichabod is number one on the list. In light of what we know, I present this small idea of what Season Two may begin like. I don't own the characters, I just play with them. 8belles**

Exit Strategy

He screamed as the lid slammed shut, hands raised to push back, but the preternatural weight of the lid crushed his efforts. The light behind Jeremy's bemused face was the last thing he saw.

Heart hammering in his ears, the darkness ate his mind as the smell of damp earth enveloped him in an organic shroud of scent.

Panic threatened to set in as his breathing came in quick, tiny gasps laying prone in the darkness. The rough pinewood scraped the skin of his palms and his neck. He could feel granules of dirt seeping in from the cracks between boards. Eyes wide open in the complete blackness, the thought occurred to him; _this is the end._

Oddly enough, it was Jeremy's voice, or was it John Parrish, or whatever that charlatan of a man called himself that echoed in Ichabod's terrified mind. "The bond of the Witnesses. The strength is in their bond."

Ichabod grasped to that thought like a life raft. Neurons firing on all cylinders chewed that phrase over and over and he envisioned Abbie's face; calm, serene, safe. Once his breathing had settled to a more acceptable level, Ichabod realized he had precious little time and air in the coffin.

Flexing his feet, the vines still held him tightly. The coils bound his torso and there was priceless little room to move. Only his hands were marginally free and that seemed to do him no good. Reaching out with his mind, which was the only thing free to him, he asked, "Someone. Please. My work; our work is not done here. Help me."

Silence greeted his plea in the utter stillness that was the inside of the coffin. His lungs began to ache and burn from the slow, inexorable decrease in oxygen. Ichabod was not a man to pray, although he believed in goodness and obviously things that were otherworldly, but he saw no way out of this situation. In his mind, while it was still lucid, he said to himself, "_Brother Masons, I have failed you. General Washington, I have failed you. Katrina, my love, I have failed you most of all. Please forgive me." _

The back of his throat burned and eyes watered. His breaths were more laborious and demanding. His mind, tissues and cells screamed for fresh air. Panic rose and he felt like he was going to vomit. Fingertips gouged wood like a scrambling rodent in a cage. Ichabod's body began to spasm in its quest for air as he inhaled more and more of his own carbon dioxide.

Deliriousness made him miss the sound above.

Was that a shovel? He couldn't form a rational thought if he tried because he was fighting for his last lungful of air.

Suddenly, the crack of wood splintering and a shovel blade missed his nose by a scant inch. Air pressure equalized slowly and Ichabod sucked every last bit of fresh air that flowed through that initial hole as the shovel blade pierced the wooden coffin again. Splinters of wood flew and Ichabod held his hands up over his face, eyes closed, to shield from the steel blade that slowly was hacking the lid to bits.

Abruptly the assault on his coffin stopped. Ichabod now being coherent from fresh air, ventured a peek at his would be rescuer from between his fingers. "Andy Brooks!" Ichabod gasped at the zombie police officer standing above him.

Andy nodded a greeting, "In the flesh and blood, although rotting."

The hole that Andy had dug through the soil and wood was only over Ichabod's face and chest. The rest of the coffin was still underground. Crane, while exceptionally grateful, was unsure about Andy's motives, " Do you intend to assist me further? State your intentions."

"You would think you'd be more happy to see someone dig your ass out of the ground. This is the gratitude I get? Suspicion?" Andy sneered but then straightened up as if he had heard something that frightened him. Taking a nervous look around, he said, "Ok. Look, I'm here to help you, but I am doing this at a great cost."

"To whom? Yourself? Trying to earn your place back on the righteous side of the world?" Ichabod retorted.

Andy cut him a look. Ichabod took that as affirmation.

"Shut up and let me dig." Andy said and began his assault again at the dirt and coffin.

Ichabod chose not to irritate his would-be-rescuer again, but begin to foment a plan to find and rescue the rest of his friends and put this nightmare to rest forever.


End file.
